The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it. - What does not destroy makes me stronger.

There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best ... Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god... Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? ... Didn't people have to sacrifice God himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves?

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what there is to love in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under.

When a scholar of the old culture vows no longer to have anything to do with men who believe in progress, he is right. For the old culture has its greatness and goodness behind it, and an historical education forces one to admit that it can never again be fresh.

Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal.